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Thursday, August 21, 2025

Charlene Stuart remembered for life of service, style and strength

by

Sampson Nanton
15 days ago
20250806

Samp­son Nan­ton

Deputy Man­ag­ing Ed­i­tor

For­mer jour­nal­ist, com­mu­ni­ca­tions spe­cial­ist and men­tal health ad­vo­cate Char­lene Stu­art was giv­en her fi­nal rites yes­ter­day in a heart­felt, tear­ful fu­ner­al ser­vice at the Love and Faith Church World Out­reach Min­istries in Sophia, Guyana.

Stu­art, 45, died on Ju­ly 20, prompt­ing an out­pour­ing of trib­utes from fam­i­ly, friends, and for­mer co-work­ers from across the re­gion.

Among those at­tend­ing the fu­ner­al was for­mer jour­nal­ist and min­is­ter of com­mu­ni­ca­tions Max­ie Cuffie, who broke down sev­er­al times as he de­scribed how Stu­art nev­er gave up on him and went out of her way to en­sure he re­ceived prop­er help af­ter he suf­fered a stroke, which left him with a speech im­ped­i­ment.

He said Stu­art or­gan­ised class­es with a speech coach, the late, renowned broad­cast jour­nal­ist Bar­bara As­soon.

“And every day I would go by Bar­bara As­soon for class­es and to get my elo­cu­tion prop­er­ly. As the min­is­ter of com­mu­ni­ca­tions, Char­lene al­ways sat in a promi­nent place to give me di­rec­tions when I’m speak­ing. So, the fact that I can speak to you all to­day...” he said, be­fore his voice be­came emo­tion­al­ly in­audi­ble.

Cuffie re­called that in 2017, when he left the gov­ern­ment, many be­lieved he would sim­ply fade away, but Stu­art al­ways be­lieved he would bounce back.

He shared that while he was re­sid­ing in Wash­ing­ton, DC, Stu­art—who was on a work trip to New York—made her way to his home to spend some time with him and his wife.

“She brought so much joy and laugh­ter to the house,” he said, be­fore his voice broke again while wip­ing away tears.

Stu­art’s pro­fes­sion­al life be­gan at the Guyana Air­ways Cor­po­ra­tion be­fore she tran­si­tioned in­to print me­dia with Stabroek News and then Kai­eteur News in Guyana.

In 2003, at just 23 years old, she made a life-chang­ing move to Trinidad and To­ba­go, where she en­tered broad­cast jour­nal­ism with CCN TV6 be­fore join­ing Guardian Me­dia’s CNC3 news­room in 2005.

Armed with a Diplo­ma in Com­mu­ni­ca­tions from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Guyana and a Mas­ter of Sci­ence de­gree in Busi­ness Man­age­ment from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ed­in­burgh, Stu­art’s com­mu­ni­ca­tions ca­reer in T&T spanned sev­er­al ma­jor gov­ern­ment and state agen­cies.

These in­clud­ed the Gov­ern­ment In­for­ma­tion Ser­vices Lim­it­ed (GISL), the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly, the Min­istry of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment, the Min­istry of Tourism, and the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion.

Her close friend and for­mer co-work­er, Colleen Hold­er—now di­rec­tor of Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Pro­duc­tions at the Of­fice of the Par­lia­ment—re­flect­ed on a high point in Stu­art’s ca­reer while she was a pro­duc­er at GISL.

“Dur­ing her tenure pro­duc­ing The In­side Sto­ry, it at­tained the dis­tinc­tion of be­ing the on­ly gov­ern­ment pro­gramme ever to be in the num­ber one tele­vi­sion view­er spot, and that record stands to­day. So, Char­lene was a con­sum­mate pro­fes­sion­al who knew her job,” Hold­er said.

As her close friend, Hold­er al­so re­called Stu­art’s per­son­al flair.

“She would have flow­ers and art in every apart­ment that she lived in over the years, and was al­ways some­one filled with lots of laugh­ter and shenani­gans.”

She de­scribed Stu­art as metic­u­lous and un­com­pro­mis­ing when it came to stan­dards.

Hold­er added, “She em­bod­ied the CSME (Cari­com Sin­gle Mar­ket and Econ­o­my) ethos—the best of the Caribbean giv­ing of their best any­where in the Caribbean.”

Fam­i­ly mem­bers who spoke at the farewell de­scribed Stu­art as bril­liant, styl­ish, and coura­geous, and said her lega­cy would live on “through the sto­ries she wrote, the art­work she cre­at­ed and the meals she cooked.”

One of her sis­ters, Afeefah Be­har­ry re­mem­bered Stu­art’s con­cise way of speak­ing, say­ing she would have a word for those who went on too long.

“Like you just re­cit­ed the en­tire Dic­tio­nary for fun? Keep it sim­ple. We’re not rewrit­ing an en­tire Shake­speare mono­logue,” she said of Stu­art.

An­oth­er fam­i­ly mem­ber re­flect­ed on her mul­ti­di­men­sion­al gifts and sig­na­ture el­e­gance.

“Char­lene was a Re­nais­sance woman, paint­ing in Trinidad, cook­ing with flair, styling homes, do­ing make-up, dress­ing el­e­gant­ly, she did it all and did it im­pec­ca­bly. She didn’t just fol­low trends, she set them. She was al­so the fam­i­ly’s walk­ing en­cy­clo­pe­dia... if she didn’t know the an­swer, she’d re­search it and come back with facts.”

Fam­i­ly mem­bers al­so ho­n­oured her courage as a men­tal health ad­vo­cate.

Af­ter be­ing di­ag­nosed with clin­i­cal de­pres­sion dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, Stu­art open­ly shared her jour­ney on so­cial me­dia—help­ing to des­tig­ma­tise men­tal health con­ver­sa­tions in the re­gion.

They en­cour­aged those who loved her to re­mem­ber her vi­brant­ly, “be­cause Char­lene would re­mind us, the oc­ca­sion is life it­self.”

“Rest well, Char­lene. You did it beau­ti­ful­ly, and you did it your way,” an­oth­er sis­ter said.

A video trib­ute in her ho­n­our high­light­ed her deep love for fam­i­ly, not­ing how she re­mained close­ly con­nect­ed through phone calls, mes­sages, and sur­prise vis­its, even af­ter leav­ing Guyana for Trinidad.

Stu­art grew up in George­town, Guyana, and was a mem­ber of the Na­tion­al School of Dance.

In her youth, she was al­so an ac­tive mem­ber of the Love and Faith Church World Out­reach Min­istries dance team.

She ex­celled aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly at both the pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary lev­els, was a school pre­fect and de­bater, and com­pet­ed in sports as a long-jumper and run­ner, ac­cord­ing to her fam­i­ly.

Fol­low­ing the fu­ner­al, she was cre­mat­ed at the Memo­r­i­al Gar­dens in Guyana.

Ed­i­tor’s Note: The writer of this ar­ti­cle worked close­ly with Char­lene Stu­art dur­ing her time at CNC3 Tele­vi­sion and pre­vi­ous­ly at CCN TV6. He re­mem­bers Stu­art as a dili­gent and per­sua­sive jour­nal­ist, and as an af­fa­ble, jol­ly and hu­mor­ous per­son. As a for­mer em­ploy­ee of Guardian Me­dia, con­do­lences go out from our ed­i­to­r­i­al staff to all Char­lene's fam­i­ly mem­bers, friends and for­mer col­leagues at this time.


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